ST. LOUIS — The next time I review a Scott Sandler pizzeria, there might be nothing more than the man and his oven. Four walls? A roof? Please stand by.
I’m getting ahead of myself, but not by much. Pizza Via, which opened in April in the Central West End, is the third — and third different — pizzeria Sandler has opened over the past 10 years. Each has winnowed away a few more of the distractions between his oven and your pizza.
Minus this context, you could believe Pizza Via to be a pop-up or possibly the project of squatters. There is the wood-burning oven, which has outlived several previous restaurants at this otherwise residential intersection of Maryland and North Taylor avenues. There is a counter where you place your order, and there are tables where you can eat, but the dining room feels incidental, the décor negligible. Dine-in or carryout, your pizza is served in a brown cardboard box.
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The box is generic. As at Sandler’s prior pizzerias, the pizza is anything but.
Sandler followed an unconventional path to this point. A hobbyist baker and self-described “pizza fanatic,†he left a career in real-estate investment to open Pizzeoli in 2014. The Soulard restaurant would have challenged an experienced operator, with its no-nonsense Neapolitan aesthetic and a menu that, like Sandler himself, was strictly vegetarian. I loved it.
In 2017, Sandler debuted Pizza Head on the Tower Grove East side of the South Grand strip. Here, he focused on New York-style pizza by the 20-inch whole pie or the oversized slice. The menu was compact — and again vegetarian — and the counter-service format and rock soundtrack evoked a timeless slice-joint vibe. I dug it, if not as deeply as I did Pizzeoli.
A few months after Sandler opened Pizza Head, he sold Pizzeoli. In early 2022, he sold Pizza Head. Each restaurant has evolved under its respective new owner. Pizzeoli has expanded its menu, with numerous meat toppings now available, while Pizza Head, still vegetarian, has added a food truck.
For Pizza Via, Sandler has developed a new style, neither Neapolitan nor New York, though it nods to both. The wood-fired oven speckles the crust with smoky char, and the dough’s 72-hour fermentation imparts a ringing tanginess, but the crust’s lip is much more compact and chewier than Neapolitan’s — more like New York’s, in other words. Pizza Via’s pie with cup-and-char pepperoni (more on those shortly) even looks like a miniature New York pizza.
Pick up a slice, and your thoughts drift back to Naples. The slice’s point droops dramatically. You can sort of fold it, a la a proper New York slice, but only long enough to bring it from the box to your mouth before the toppings escape.
Pizza obsessives should note that Sander has essentially undertaken the inverse of the Union Loafers project. That restaurant’s acclaimed pizza, impressively charred but not wood-fired, is Neapolitan-ish New York-style. Call Pizza Via New York-ish Neapolitan.
And, yes, though Sandler remains a vegetarian, he is offering real-deal pork pepperoni here. In fact, he is serving two different kinds of pepperoni. The aforementioned cup-and-char style crisps around the edges and cradles a splash of hot oil. For the King Pepperoni pizza, Sandler switches to oversized or sandwich-sized slices, the tortoise of sharp, funky pepperoni flavor to the cup-and-char’s hare. He blankets both the King and the Cup-and-Char pepperoni pizzas with an unobtrusively elegant blend of both aged and fresh mozzarella and a little Parmesan.
The rest of Pizza Via’s brief menu is vegetarian. (Only one pie, the cheese-free Marinara with sauce, garlic, basil and oregano, is vegan.) Like the King Pepperoni, the Queen Margherita bubbles with both fresh and aged mozzarella as well as Parmesan. Here, though, the fresh mozzarella persists as distinct, creamy blobs — enough so that a bite with the crust, a bit of fresh basil frizzled in the oven and a hint of the bright house sauce tastes like the pinnacle of pizza simplicity.
To understand how Sandler achieves pizza mastery through subtle variations, order the margherita alongside the Kids Cheese pizza, or as it is fully and appropriately described, the Kids Cheese (For Anyone). With the same trio of aged and fresh mozzarella and Parmesan, Sandler authors an ideal example of the classic New York — or, really, American — cheese pizza, gooey and stretchy and certain to please both kids and their beleaguered parents.
Pizza obsessives might lodge one complaint about Pizza Via: Sandler is showcasing his variations on very familiar themes. Yet the best pizza here suggests the menu possesses limitless potential, which is saying something since, again, this is Sandler’s third pizzeria in a decade. The Spinach Pie skips sauce and makes Sandler’s go-to trio of cheeses the pizza’s base, with hints of garlic, pepper and oregano. He tops the cheese with a generous portion of barely wilted fresh spinach and drizzles this with a sticky balsamic glaze.
The Spinach Pizza tastes like summer’s peak, verdant and bittersweet. If Pizza Via doesn’t offer many frills in the dine-in experience, it does feature a pleasant sidewalk patio where you can enjoy this pizza and a soda (there is no beer or wine available) while the heat and humidity of another ºüÀêÊÓƵ day relax, slightly, in the evening.
If Sandler ever decides to cut out four walls, windows and a roof, this patio would be a fine home for his next hearth-to-hands pizzeria.
Note: Pizza Via is closed during its regular hours this Thursday (July 10). It will reopen Friday at 4:45 p.m.